Archive for the 'Science' Category



Before It Washes Up on the Beach

Published on April 29, 2009

Beachcombing feels romantic and random. But actual science applies to beachcombing, as it does to nearly everything. In his new book Flotsametrics: How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science, oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer and maritime writer Eric Scigliano detail Ebbesmeyer’s research on currents and “gyres,” the circular patterns that objects follow [...]


Sixty Books About Bovines

Published on January 8, 2009

I’ve always admired authors who have specialties: they’re experts; they’re the go-to guys and gals on their given subjects, and they devote their lives to studying, experiencing, and writing about this one little facet of the world. New Zealand veterinarian Graham Meadows is one of those. He has co-authored more than sixty books for children and [...]


UNDERWATER TO GET OUT OF THE RAIN, by Trevor Norton
(Da Capo, $25; release date June 1, 2006)

Published on June 4, 2006

Defying all apparent indicators of dorkdom — the author is a middle-aged professor; the book’s title is “A Love Affair with the Sea” — this memoir by a British marine biologist recounting his research and adventures around the world is limned with joltingly gorgeous writing and hilarious observations that will leave you flopping and panting [...]


INTELLIGENT THOUGHT: Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement, edited by John Brockman
(Vintage, $14; release date May 9, 2006)

Published on May 17, 2006

The “debate” (and even that term is overly kind) between evolution and the repackaged creationism known as “intelligent design” has been played out on local school boards and in the editorial offices of textbook publishers across the country for almost a decade now. (And for over a century before that under different euphemisms as well.) [...]


STALKING THE RIEMANN HYPOTHESIS, by Dan Rockmore
(Vintage, $14.95; release date May, 2006)

Published on May 14, 2006

This new paperback edition of Rockmore’s 2005 hardcover original re-introduces mathe-fanatics to the dizzying world of Bernhard Riemann, the genius behind the legendary Riemann Hypothesis. More famous to the general public as the man who developed the multi-dimensional geometry that opened the door to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Riemann also hypothesized a technique for predicting [...]


THE MÖBIUS STRIP, by Clifford Pickover
(Thunder’s Mouth, $24.95; release date May 15, 2006)

Published on May 11, 2006

A Möbius Strip is more than just a parlor trick or childhood toy; it’s a revolutionary topological discovery that has had profound effects on science and cosmology. Invented by otherwise-obscure 19th-century German mathematician August Möbius, this bizarre one-sided and one-edged miracle has a seemingly infinite number of astounding attributes and holds deep ramifications for how [...]